Further Your Lifestyle

Ep.56 - How to PULSE check your Progress? | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast

April 03, 2022 Your Host: Chris Furlong Episode 56
Further Your Lifestyle
Ep.56 - How to PULSE check your Progress? | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast
Show Notes Transcript

Being now 90 days in to 2022 at the time of this podcast episode, it seems FITTING to check in and do  a PULSE check on the progress. Today we go through that process of pulse checking progress!

Watch in YT: https://youtu.be/tWGi6iJI-jQ

▬▬▬▬ CHAPTERS ▬▬▬▬

0:00 - Episode 56 and we are 90 Days in!
1:53 - let PULSE check the last 90 days
2:14 - STEP 1 of the PROCESS
4:33 - STEP 2 of the PROCESS
8:14 - bring in perspective
11:25 - STEP 3 of the PROCESS called Rose Thorn Bud
15:19 - what has this REVEALED?
16:40 - the FINAL POINT
17:24 - lets have a chat
18:30 - so whats next??

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[00:00:00] Chris Furlong: Yo, yo yo, welcome back to the further, your lifestyle podcast, conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris Furlong. I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here, having the conversation with you, uh, episode 56. It's, uh, it's exciting once again to be back here and I hope you all having a wonderful.

[00:00:18] Chris Furlong: I Hope you are having a wonderful day, whatever you're doing, wherever you are, however you're listening. And I want to dive straight into it where at the time of this episode, where basically 90 days into 2022, and you know what I like to do around 90 days, which is the end of the first quarter. It's kind of just take a moment to reflect and take a moment to do a bit of a pulse check and, you know, being 90 days into the year, um, it seems fitting that you, you take some time to just check and see how you're progressing.

[00:00:46] Chris Furlong: Now, if you've been following this podcast for a while, if you've been following from the start of the year, I have been talking about these things around setting goals and how, if you want. Be what you want this year. You're going to have to do a few things and that comes down to you need to be willing to change.

[00:01:00] Chris Furlong: You need to be willing to take action and you need to be willing to show up. And we're going to reflect on that today. I'm going to be talking through some of the things that I've achieved or haven't achieved and how I'm progressing. From going through this process and it is a process that you can follow along to, and maybe just, you know, checking on yourself, have that pulse check and see how you're progressing.

[00:01:19] Chris Furlong: And I'll be clear from, from, you know, from the straight up that, you know, it's not always about that. You have to do. Where you want to be, right? Because this is what helps us grow. This is what helps challenges. This, this is what helps us think differently. You know, if, if I was doing everything and I was achieving everything and it was perfect, well, it would probably be boring and I wouldn't be growing and I wouldn't be learning.

[00:01:41] Chris Furlong: So there is good things that come from those things that we aren't necessarily. You know, kicking butt at, or actually achieving to the dot, whereas other areas we probably are achieving or overachieving and we'll, we'll, we'll chat about that. So, so let's be real. Let's, let's get into it. And, uh, let's chat about reflecting on the last 90 days and you know, you can do this at any point in time.

[00:02:02] Chris Furlong: I like to do this on a regular basis. Most. 90 days, mid year. And then, you know, as I get closer to the end of the year, building that kind of roadmap plan to make sure I am ticking off those goals or how I'm going to do it. So let's just dive straight into it. The first thing that we want to do, um, and this is without context, this is without, you know, diving in or reflecting on the actual goals that you have set for.

[00:02:23] Chris Furlong: But actually just take some time and I want you to do this, whether it means you have to pause this podcast and listen to it later, so you can actually do this or maybe you can do it wherever you are, but I want you to join in and actually take the steps in actually trying to do this with me. Say, if you are running or.

[00:02:38] Chris Furlong: Think about, can you do this later? Or can you do this while you're doing it? You might have to jot it down in your head, but let's be realistic about it. You're basically going to be making a list of regardless of whatever goals you set, regardless of what you've been achieving is I want you to think back in the last 90 days of your most memorable wins and achievements, they can be big wins.

[00:02:57] Chris Furlong: They can be small wins. Just anything that you think is a win at this point. And I'm going to share some of mine, uh, in the last 90 days, you know, the first things that come to mind is I've launched my YouTube memberships. I've increased my podcast growth. Uh it's it's about probably 70%. Um, That's basically on average daily download.

[00:03:18] Chris Furlong: So, you know, I started at a certain number at the start of the year that I was doing per day. And now that's gone up by 73%. Um, I've completed five of six, half marathons. I've also completed my two bays I've even signed up for, um, my next 50 K ultra marathon. Um, I started mentoring I'm mentoring. But I'm also getting some coaching of my own.

[00:03:38] Chris Furlong: Um, and that was definitely not something I had planned for at the start of this year. And, uh, I've delegated some workload. I've got some workload that I'm not having to do it, and it's getting done for me. So a few quick things, and there's probably plenty more, but those are the ones that are really.

[00:03:52] Chris Furlong: Basically fresh off the cuff, um, that I can resonate with. And there's probably more, but that's the whole point is you want the things that coming fresh off the cuff and the whole purpose we do, this is, this helps you see what's been happening. What you've been doing. It also might help you realize that maybe your priorities have changed.

[00:04:08] Chris Furlong: They've shifted and maybe you're doing things that you hadn't planned, or you're doing more than that. You thought you could, or you're doing less, but it just helps paint the picture of what you've been able to achieve in 90 days. And there's no right or wrong. It's about what you've done. Right? And that's, that's the only person that you can be accountable to.

[00:04:24] Chris Furlong: Is you, how about you, as I said, this list isn't to compare, but it's to help you to start thinking about how do we then take this to the next level. So once you've got that list, let's move on. So next, what we want to do is we essentially want to recapture or redefine or. Call out or identify or bring them up on screen or however you've tracked your goals or listed your goals.

[00:04:43] Chris Furlong: It's just identify what your intentions were for this year, whether they were goals, whether they were intentions or whatever they were and understanding what their importance and priority were. Um, usually the way you can do this is trying to group them up into similar. Uh, so maybe, you know, you might've had some goals or some intentions around family relationships and friends, so that's all bundled together.

[00:05:05] Chris Furlong: You might've had something around experience, passions and emotions or traveling. You might put them all together. Uh, then there might be something with business, money and growth, or then, you know, there might be another around getting fit or being healthy or nutrition or diet, and you can bundle them all together.

[00:05:20] Chris Furlong: So what you want to do is understand what your little groups are, your bundles, and then you're going to start to, you know, list out what those goals were underneath. Ah, just so you've got that perspective within these areas. Uh, you, you know, that you had set the intentions and set the goals, start to check-in on each one.

[00:05:36] Chris Furlong: We're not going to go through in detail of our mind because I've got quite a lot. You can check them out on my own personal, uh, YouTube, but what you do. As you go through, if you're up or down, that's what you want to tick. You want to say I up or you down. And if you're up, you want to celebrate, you want to give yourself a pat on the back, you know, you deserve it.

[00:05:53] Chris Furlong: So kudos, good job. And if you're down, this is where we need to dig a little deeper and we're going to basically do a bit of a perspective, um, check or an assessment check, just to really understand, you know, how that's progressed and. It's where we get a little bit more specific and you can do this for the up ones as well.

[00:06:10] Chris Furlong: And I'll take you through a few examples, right? We've got three here. So the first one was, um, for me was actually under relationships. You know, I had a goal this year that I wanted to meet with essentially one person each month that I hadn't done. So within the last two years, um, you know, basically have coffee or lunch with them and I wanted to do one each month for the 12 months.

[00:06:30] Chris Furlong: Um, now over the last 90 days, I've actually done five out of. Um, so I'm actually already ahead in terms of average progress, which is a big win, right. You know, I didn't expect that there was, I was behind in the first month and then come month, two month, three being March, you know, I've actually been able to make that happen quite quickly.

[00:06:48] Chris Furlong: So, you know, that's a big win, you know, picks up on the back. Yeah. The next one that I want to give an example by, and this is a hundred percent legit and being transparent, he is in my business. Um, I want to earn $60,000 in profit this year, you know, into my. Uh, which two equates to around $160 per day in profit.

[00:07:08] Chris Furlong: And currently I'm about about 10.4 days behind this. Now I track this like a Hawk and you know, if that's something you're interested in, let me know, leave a comment, but you know, I'm basically about 10.5 or 10.4 days behind this. Now this is where you need to start to do the assessment and check. Okay.

[00:07:24] Chris Furlong: Should I be concerned now? I think not dramatically because we're 90 days in, we still have a long way to go for the rest of the. But I need to be aware of my current position to help me understand, do I need to make some changes? And that's when we can start. Really dive a little deeper. Now, sometimes when we see that we're not progressing or where we want to be, we can become disheartened.

[00:07:44] Chris Furlong: And, you know, we lose, we lose focus on where we're going or what we want. And it just becomes a little overwhelming. That's not what this is all about. Right? If you are struggling with this or you are feeling overwhelmed, put that aside for now, there's a way that we can get through that. But how I manage this is, well, I'm looking at this, knowing that, okay, it's only 10 days behind.

[00:08:04] Chris Furlong: There's still opportunity to catch up. How I manage this, as I said, is I'm going to keep going with my consistency, but start to see what options do I have to increase. Is there things that I can change? But also what I'd like to do is if you are ticking it down in any of your goals is also bringing in perspective.

[00:08:20] Chris Furlong: Right? Because as I said, at the start of this whole episode was like, you know, sometimes, you know, it's okay to be behind because that's, what's pushing you. It's helping you get to that next level. It's pushing you outside of your comfort level. If everything was easy, um, everyone would be doing it. Right.

[00:08:35] Chris Furlong: So what I'd like to do is take some perspective. Now I've been doing the reselling. This is my second year. If I actually look at this where I was a year ago, when I first started on average profit per day was $41. And at the moment I'm doing, I'm doing a lot more than I'm doing $146 per day. And my total profit to date a year ago was about $3,200.

[00:08:58] Chris Furlong: Whereas at the time of this year, 90 days in I'm at $13,000. So that perspective right there tells me like, I'm doing something right. I'm on the right track. I'm moving into. And no, I'm not where I want to be, but I am definitely in the right place to be going to where I need to be or want to be. And that helps give me some perspective of how far I've come and how I'm actually progressing.

[00:09:19] Chris Furlong: And, you know, you never want to set a goal. That's going to be easy. You want to set a goal, that's going to be realistic, right. And this is still realistic. It's not too far-fetched, you know, I haven't hit some road bumps and realized, nah, this is unrealistic. It is still very realistic. So doing that kind of process will help you maybe understand it to be.

[00:09:37] Chris Furlong: The other example that I want to share, or, you know, a goal that I'll take you through and be honest with is, um, for health and exercise. I had set some ambitious goals around, uh, running this year. One of them to do two half marathons a month, um, and average seven kilometers every day for 365 days to basically hit 2,500 kilometers, uh, compared to 2000 kilometers last year.

[00:09:58] Chris Furlong: So how am I going? Well, the reality is, um, I'm not doing well with these, the first one, Mary, on the half marathons, I've done five or six. I know I have plenty of time to make up for that. So not too concerned, distance wise, however, I'm about 253 kilometers behind plan. Basically I'm averaging around 4.2 kilometers per day, which is a big gap.

[00:10:18] Chris Furlong: I'm basically half almost, right. This is where things you have to start to think, okay, is this a priority for me? It is a priority for me. I want this. So I need to figure out how am I going to change it up. Now I have actually just signed up for my 50 K ultra marathon, which isn't till September, but my training starts with.

[00:10:34] Chris Furlong: Which naturally we'll bring in some new volumes. I knew this was coming and it meant that it didn't have to double down for the first quarter of the, of the year. What will be interesting is over the next 90 days is do I get some momentum back? Will I be able to play some of that catch up? Now last year, I, I did a lot of cramming when I had my goal for 2000 and I had to do my biggest month ever, um, in December to catch up to that 2000 kilometers.

[00:10:56] Chris Furlong: I don't want to be doing that this year. So once again, perspective, bringing in lessons learned from previous situations. How do I make sure I, you know, don't get myself in that sticky situation plus evaluating how much do I actually want? Is it still a priority comparing back to some of those original wins that have had in the last 90 days, but that's three examples for you.

[00:11:17] Chris Furlong: And these are just some of mine too. Once again, to give back that example to help you see how I'm doing it, something that's realistic to me or reality to me, but the next thing I want you to do when we can, we can do it together is for any of these, you can actually do this for, but more. So we want to do this as a holistic view in general, across all the goals and especially any that you're struggling with.

[00:11:40] Chris Furlong: It's a little exercise that I call rose thorn, bud. And this comes from a design thinking practice or one of their, I guess, activities that you can do within that practice. And rose, usually pink indicates things that are positive. Thorn being blue is usually something that is negative. And bud being green, it just indicates something that has potential.

[00:11:59] Chris Furlong: And what we're going to do is we're going to take the above and then we're going to apply it to your overall progress. When I say we're going to take the above, we're going to take the rose thorn bud, and we're going to apply it to your overall program. And we can start to see some new patterns and some analysis, right?

[00:12:12] Chris Furlong: And I'm going to do this very high level to give you some perspective, to help give you some understanding of how you can do it for yourself. So for me, when I look at everything that I've just kind of discussed and some of my other goals that I'm doing, and I'm doing a lot, like I'm trying to get 10,000 downloads on the, on the podcast.

[00:12:29] Chris Furlong: And I'm trying to get to a certain amount of revenue coming from my YouTube and all these different things. But the roses for me, which is things that are positive. I'm getting more done in the same amount of time than a year ago, meaning I'm able to do all these things. I'm doing extra things, I'm doing more things.

[00:12:46] Chris Furlong: And I've got exactly the same amount of time. We all have the same amount of time compared to a year ago. And it means that I've grown. It means that I'm doing things better and it means that I'm able to do more things and search for more things. Right. It's it's the next one is I'm growing and I'm being challenged.

[00:13:00] Chris Furlong: I am getting pushed to my outside my company. Another positive is, um, I'm happy. I'm feeling happy. I'm feeling fun and I'm not stressed. Um, and I feel in control, like everything that I'm doing, I'm accountable for. I get to control it. I get to dictate it and I'm excited for what's coming. So there are some of the roses across everything that I've just spoken about.

[00:13:20] Chris Furlong: Now, the thorns, the negatives, there's two here that I, I really, that really. And you can do this as a, quite a deep exercise and, you know, try and do a minimum of five. But for me, I'm just doing two. Um, the first one is like, I am questioning if I can retain this momentum, can I continue to keep up with this?

[00:13:39] Chris Furlong: And that's something that, um, you know, just keeping in mind because I am trying to do a lot of things and. I'm setting that expectation on myself. So that's definitely a, a negative area because I am doing a lot, you know, will it be able to, will I be able to keep up with that momentum? And that's something I have to realistically think about.

[00:13:56] Chris Furlong: The other one is I've had a lot of self doubt and a lot of, um, imposter syndrome popping up. And that's because I'm am trying to step out of my comfort zone. I'm trying to do different things, things that I've never done before, and that comes with this journey, but it's definitely been a huge negative.

[00:14:10] Chris Furlong: And sometimes, you know, I will delay. Slow down on things because I'm so stuck in my head and that's a bad thing that you don't want that it's not good. And the next one is bud. Now, bud was indicates things that have potential, and I've got another two here and I love this progress is progress. Right? And looking back and everything that I'm doing, I'm progressing regardless in different areas.

[00:14:31] Chris Furlong: Some areas above some areas are under some areas I'm just perfect. Right. And. I understand looking at this, I still have time to catch up. There's plenty of chance to do that. So I'm not really in a situation where I feel like, nah, I don't want to do this. I'm still quite happy to proceed. And that's what you need to ask yourself as well.

[00:14:50] Chris Furlong: Are you still happy to proceed with some of these goals and it's okay to change things. It's not the end of the world, but you need to really ask the question. Are you still wanting these things? Now? The next one for bud was I've been having an amazing opportunity to help more people, and I want to continue to do this and that that's been really great.

[00:15:06] Chris Furlong: And I want to grow that and blossom that. Um, yeah, that's, that's the rose thorn, but, and I really encourage you to go through, spend some time on this and, you know, I can send you some links in the show notes of where you can do this, how you can do it. Um, if you're still not too sure from doing this, you know, you may have had some hard conversations, you know, w you may have struggled with the roses, or maybe you've just had.

[00:15:30] Chris Furlong: Too many thoughts, too many thorns and, and that's overwhelming. It really is. Or maybe you're not sure about the potential coming and the opportunities at hand. And I get it. There's so much, we all want to be the best, the biggest and all these things. And it's, it's not about that. You want to prove it to necessarily anyone else, but you want to prove it to yourself.

[00:15:47] Chris Furlong: Right. And I get that. And based on those, if you are feeling overwhelmed, if it's not what you expected. Maybe those conversations were just hard to digest. This is where you now need to act and take action on these insights. You know, you need to ask yourself, have priorities changed. Does this mean you need to realign your focus and it's okay to do that, but you do that consciously and do it with your own, you know, intent.

[00:16:11] Chris Furlong: Maybe you can see you've lost track and you know, maybe this is a wake up call, but you need to get back on track. So if you're motivated, if you're still. How are you going to get back on track? What are you going to do about it? Maybe you found a new perspective in all this, and you've seen some new opportunities from those small wins that you mentioned at the start, the wins in the last 90 days.

[00:16:29] Chris Furlong: What, what are those? And maybe you can start to discover more. You know, and, and dive into those, or maybe you're exactly where you want to be. All right. Where you should be. And that's okay too. I think regardless the big, the big kicker and the final point is these are things that we think about, right?

[00:16:46] Chris Furlong: And they, they, they require us to take action. But I think the next thing that you need to do is you need to be talking about. Talking to someone about it. And you know, whether it's finding a mentor or an accountability partner or someone to check in with, right. Whether it's a friend, family member or a loved one or someone, someone else.

[00:17:04] Chris Furlong: Right. And this will be key. And I I've, I I'm learning this for myself. And it just helps you work through all that Headspace, you know, all the things that you're filling up and not, and you're not just listening to your own voice because your own voice becomes a bit tiring after a while. And I want to encourage you, you know, there's multiple ways you can do this.

[00:17:22] Chris Furlong: You can reach out to friends or if you're, maybe you've got mentors or whatnot, but if you want to have a conversation, reach out, let's have a conversation. Um, you know, you can hit me up on Instagram at further your lifestyle, Twitter at further your life, or even send us an email at hello at further lifestyle.

[00:17:38] Chris Furlong: Um, more than happy to have a conversation with you and see what we can do to help. And there is a will be very clear, very transparent. I am working on a few things of this. Opening up some, uh, you know, one-on-one mentoring and accountability groups and things like that. Um, I can't announce it at this point cause I don't have all the final details, but that is coming as well.

[00:17:57] Chris Furlong: Because at the end of the day, my goal for you guys is to help you further your lifestyle. Right. And having these conversations that, I mean, that's the whole purpose of this podcast is to help you further your lifestyle. Right. And you know, we, things that will enable you. Things that will inspire you and things that will motivate you to, I guess, pursue these things in yourself, but that isn't easy by yourself.

[00:18:17] Chris Furlong: And if you can have some help, I'm happy to help with it too. So more on that to come. And if you've got any questions, of course, reach out. Let's continue the conversation. If you are watching on the YouTube, you can leave a comment too, but the big takeaway from all this. Go for all this reflect on it. See, see what what's changing.

[00:18:35] Chris Furlong: Do you need to change anything? Can you adjust something? Is everything going all good? And it's okay to make changes, but if you don't have these check-ins these pulse checks on a regular basis or irregular basis, we come too late to be able to make up. And then you'll get disgruntled. You get frustrated and you think, ah, I haven't been able to achieve anything, even though you would have achieved something regardless.

[00:18:56] Chris Furlong: So I think it's a very important conversation to be having with yourself or someone else. And it just helps you just work through it. Right. I mean, you could set an amazing goal and whether you fail it and I don't know about it, I'm not going to think any different on view, but I do want you to be the best person you possibly can be.

[00:19:12] Chris Furlong: Um, and if I can help with that or if I can, you know, by sharing this is going to help you get there, then kudos. That's what I want. All right. That's it folks really do appreciate you being here. As I said, you can reach out, we can continue the conversation. Um, if you've got any questions about any of this as well, or maybe you went to shore or what I was talking.

[00:19:28] Chris Furlong: Then yeah, let's, let's continue the conversation and really, really do appreciate you being here, hanging out and just listening and that you have a wonderful day. Cheers. Now, if you didn't know, we do have the podcast merge and this is with a key focus of enamel pins. Now, if you haven't checked these out, make sure you do because the intent of these are really just to be a small token and a reminder for you to challenge.

[00:19:51] Chris Furlong: To push on and to further your lifestyle, whether it is a gift for someone else to encourage them, or maybe to inspire them, or maybe it's a way to motivate yourself, or you can simply just make a purchase to simply support the podcast, which would be greatly appreciated. We do also have some sweaters and some long tees, so make sure you check it out, link in the description and in the show notes, really to appreciate it.

[00:20:12] Chris Furlong: Cheers.